When Free Isn’t Free: CICA Challenges AI Career Bots in Schools

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Published on
April 29, 2026

When Free Isn’t Free: CICA Challenges AI Career Bots in Schools

QGCA is writing to draw your urgent attention to the attached CICA press release regarding a recent announcement about the rollout by Microsoft and Anyway (formerly Year 13) of a free AI-powered career coaching tool in Australian secondary schools.

CICA’s key concern is this: schools are being asked to sign up to a tool described as free, without any apparent reference to professional standards, without consultation with the career development profession, and without transparent disclosure that student interactions will generate training data for a commercial AI product. The students in these schools will not be the customers. They will be the product.

This is not a blanket opposition to AI in careerservices. CICA's position is clear: well-designed tools, developed inpartnership with the profession and benchmarked against our national standards,can play a useful role. This initiative, as announced, does not meet that bar.

Click here to read the press release.